Evaluation

Me and Milly decided we wanted to create a social action video on Fostering, and talking
about how big of an issue it is and that more people need to become foster carers. We
decided to work together as a team because we felt that we could produce a better quality
of work and get things done quicker and to a higher quality.
When we started to discuss ideas, we first came up with the idea of doing the social action
on homeless people in Reading. We felt that this was an issue that needed to be raised. This
is because whenever we are in reading we feel that there are so many people always
begging for money, which makes the town, look unattractive. However, the reason we
didnt go with this idea was because there were already other people doing it so when we
asked a few charities that helped homeless people, they already had someone doing the
same thing for them, and we wanted to do something different.
We ended up coming up with doing Fostering in Slough. We felt this was something that
affects the community in slough and can bring us closer together. We also thought this was
a good idea because Millys family are already foster careers, so we feel that this is
something that more people should do because it is so rewarding and allows you to help
other people. The foster agency they are with is called Fitzgerald Fostering, they help find
children from ages 18 and younger, nice new families or put them in long term foster care.
These children need more families to go to, so by making this video we are encouraging new
families to join the agency to help change young childrens lives.
When we started the social action project, we started with emailing different fostering
charities to see who would let us do a social action video for them. After emailing the
charities, we started on the research, such as the Research Booklet, and getting everything
together such as the script and voice over recordings, etc.
We were lucky to get a response from the Fitzgerald Fostering who let us interview them for
our video on Fostering. This would also let us promote their agency a bit and would get
their name out to the public for the people who would watch this video, and maybe make
more people aware of the fostering available in Slough as well as give information on
Fostering as a whole. When we got the response from Fitzgerald Fostering, we decided on
an interview date where me and Milly would come and interview the two founders of the
agency James Townend and Lesley Fitzgerald. Having this interview really helped us with a
lot of the information that we gathered, as we found out things that we didnt know before.
We had to ask and gain permission from the agency to see if we could interview other foster
carers that were with them, as well as foster children who were currently in foster care. We
were told that interviewing the foster carers were no problem, and that we could interview
the foster children but we would have to make them look anonymous in the video, for
example you cant see their face and we have to edit their voice.
We also interviewed foster carers who have been fostering for a few years. We interviewed
Millys mum, Justine Loader who has been fostering for 5 years and she told us the positives
of fostering and how rewarding it is. We also interviewed Joy Cooper who has been
fostering for around 6-7 years and she gave us more of an insight on her experience with
fostering and why she likes it and would advise other people to do it.
When we had gathered all the interviews and shot everything, and gathered the archive
material, music, etc. we were ready to start editing. The editing process went really well as I
had all the material ready before I started so I didnt have to look for material whilst editing.
This made it much easier for me. Me and Milly edited our own version of the social action
video. This was something we were required to do, but I think it worked quite well as then
we didnt have to worry about how much both of us should edit each.
Me and Milly started the editing at the same time so we were on the same level with
everything. We started at a quite good time with the editing, it wasnt too late, and we
managed to get the final product in on time. My first prototype turned out really well, I
thought, but looking through it, I saw a few things that I had to change, such as some
pictures/ archive videos werent filling out the screen, so I dragged out the image so that it
would fill the screen, but luckily it wasnt too much so it didnt turn out blurry.
All the research and planning that me and Milly carried out for the social action all went
towards helping with the final production. The research booklet helped us to lay out our
ideas and get background information and facts on it. We will also look at statistics on the
issue and find out persuasive material which might change someones mind or make
someone at least think about wanting to foster. The final product met the specifications as
me and Milly managed to do everything that we had planned for example, we got to
interview the carers that we had hoped. We did everything legally we didnt break any
legal ethical issues, however we tried to interview one of the foster children and this
wouldnt have been legal.

I completed my video on time and after the completion of my social action video, I
presented it to an audience who gave me feedback on the video. The majority of my
feedback was positive and told me that the audience seemed satisfied. I asked if they think
the video is fit for purpose and the responses I received everyone agreed that it is fit for
purpose and that it makes people more aware of the issue.
I also asked if they thought the techniques that were used were effective in giving
information and creating an emotional response the responses were all very positive.
Looking at the survey also helped me to see what I could improve on, like some people
thought there could have been less facts as there were a few facts who were quite long in
text and they could have been shortened, and also some of the videos were worse quality
than others.

I chose to work together with Milly because I know that we both have really good work
ethic and get the work done that we need to do. Also, we could both work together to
produce work of a better quality, and come up with ideas of what the social action should
be. When me and Milly started brainstorming ideas of what we could do, we eventually
thought of Fostering. This would work really well as Millys family have been foster carers
for 5 years and so we would be able to have access to the foster agency and interviewing
the founders as well as interviewing other foster carers. Me and Milly shared all work
equally and divided it up equally, for example Milly had to get archive footage and research
facts and statistics, and I had to find archive footage and write questions for the interviews.
We both interviewed the founders of the fostering agency and Millys mum, and Milly
interviewed her brother (to have a perspective from children who are part of foster caring)
and so I completed the production booklet. There was one problem which we faced but
managed to resolve, which was that we couldnt interview the foster child called Charlie,
who has been in fostering throughout his life. Instead we interviewed Millys Brother, Zak,
whos family are foster carers, and instead got an insight of how he finds fostering and if he
likes that his family does it. I thought me and Milly worked really well together because we
divided up the tasks equally and got it done on time. We have worked together in previous
projects so I knew that Milly has a really good work ethic and provides a good amount of
information and is reliable with getting tasks done.
To summarise my production, I feel like it was a success. The archive footage and music
worked well together along with our own footage that me and Milly shot. The video was
clear that it was about fostering and trying to make people more aware of how much of an
issue fostering is how many children are in fostering, and that more people need to
become foster carers. I provided lots of information and statistics in my video to make
people more informed and the archive footage and our own footage made it all the more
effective on the audience. It was effective because it made people more aware of the issue
than they were before, and you felt sorry for the kids and what they go through. I felt like
the technical qualities and aesthetic qualities were very go, such as the editing and the
camera shots and movements. I felt the Interview was well shot, from a clear, forward-
facing angle, and I think the camera shot on Lesley Fitzgerald looks good as she is sat on one
side of the screen with her laptop on the other side, with a clear background. However, the
camera on James Townend was slightly different but I like how it shows they are quite
relaxed and have a typical working environment, however, if I had to change this I would
make this camera shot similar to that of the one on Lesley.

These are two print screens from the interview we had with the founders of the Fostering
agency.
Looking at the survey, the audience thought the technical qualities were really good, for
example some said the editing works well with the music and is smooth I showing the
issue and I enjoyed the editing because it flowed well and was cut perfectly. The
technical qualities (or editing) helped create more of an emotional response in the
audience. The audience liked the aesthetic qualities and how the light and sound was used.
The majority of the people who answered my survey said that they liked the camera shots
and movements and thought that the interview with the founders of the fostering agency
worked really well in providing with more information about the issue. As a whole, the video
was appropriate to our target audience because it didnt include any inappropriate content
or footage. There wasnt any content which wouldve been inappropriate for a younger
audience either, so this type of documentary could be shown on YouTube, where younger
viewers would be able to watch it as well, as well as be shown during the day, on TV. Our
original intentions were to create a video which would inform people about fostering and
how much of an issue it really is. It was meant to be informative and give people more
information on the issue than they already knew not many people knew how much of an
issue it was, which I also found out when I took the survey.
I asked the question Do you think the information was communicated to the audience
clearly? and most of the responses I got was about people realising how much of an issue it
really is.

The final production met our initial idea and I felt this was very effective. I think what we
could improve on is maybe have more cut-scene footage of our own, and cut down on the
use of archive footage. We had the interviews but if I had to do it again, I would add more
video clips of the interview with the foster carers.

Other Social Action videos on Fostering usually include a lot of cut-scenes of for example,
children playing in a park, or if the voice over of the video or someone is talking about
something specific like adoption, they may show videos of parents meeting their adopted
child for the first time, with the voiceover over that video. They have also used interviews
with carers or people who work in foster agencies, and talked to them a bit about fostering
and the different benefits it can brings and whats good about it. A lot f Fostering videos will
tell you that it is hard work and can be challenging, but it is the best thing and most
rewarding thing youll ever do both self-rewarding because youll feel that you are helping
someone have a better life than they mightve had otherwise, and also rewarding for the
children as they are the ones receiving the opportunity for a better life. This was similar to
mine as I involved archive footage, interviews and cut-scenes (or between-shots) in my
video. The archive footage included video clips that I would have with voice over on top, and
the interviews I had was with the two founders of the Fostering agency that me and Milly
went to see (and practically based our social action video on), where we asked them what is
good about fostering and why more people should do it, and a bit more about the history of
the agency. This would help give people more information on the topic and fostering itself
from a professionals point of view. We also interviewed two foster carers who have been
doing it for 5 years or more, and they told us that it is very rewarding, and its a good thing
to do for not only you but your own children also, as it gives them a whole other perspective
and view on other kids from other backgrounds and also a different kind of respect for other
people.
The Kony 2012 Social Action video had used a range of different technical qualities with
editing and different cut scenes, etc. It was a very persuasive video and helped in trying to
make people want to take action by showing it from a normal persons perspective and
showing that someone is trying to do something about it, when they showed the campaign
on making Kony famous, by getting a vast amount of people together to wake up at 00:00
to fill their towns with posters and advertise Kony and make people aware of what he does
so that it would motivate and make people want to join in on the action to try and stop him.
The technical qualities were really good in this video and they used fades, the use of music
and effects really well. For example, the music really fit in with what was happening in the
video first the narrator (or creator of the SA video) was telling us about the issue itself and
who Kony was, where the music was quite sad. He then started talking about what we, the
public can do to help the video really focused on talking to the audience and making the
audience feel involved by just watching the video. This is where the music changed to a
much more vibrant and almost happier tone.

These are screenshots from the Kony 2012 video. The first picture is summing up what the
video is about helping children who are in danger in countries like Ghana and Uganda from
a man named Kony. The video used a lot of images, more than I used in my video, and the
man who created this social action video had an interview of his son (upper-right picture).
This is affective as it makes it more personal to the people who it is aimed at (mainly
Americans), and those that are able to do something about the issue.

These are screenshots of my video, with the picture on the left summing up what the video
is about (fostering and adoption) and the picture on the right is a screenshot from the
interview with one of the foster carers, who is telling us about her experiences and what is
good about it and benefits, etc.
I feel like the professional standard of my video lives up to the standard of the Kony video to
an extent. As these are two completely different videos, they will have different lighting and
shot types, etc., for example the screenshot (above) from the Kony video of Jacob, the angle
is almost looking down at him, which shows the audience that he is a minority or was a
minority at this time in the video. However, later in the video you see Jacob again, where he
is holding a mic and the camera is looking up at him, showing he has a more superior role
(picture on the right of Kony screenshots).

In my SA video, it starts off quite neutral and then as we start talking about fostering and
the problems, the music becomes more sad and low. It is also used in the background and
wasnt too distracting for background music. Later when the voice over talks more about
whats good (the adoption part), the music changes to a more happier beat as it shows the
good sides where parents ar adopting children and giving them a loving home.